Academy artistic director Jeremy Rhizor talks with mime and movement director Tony Lopresti about incorporating movement in Baroque oratorio.
topic: mime, movement, Baroque oratorio
L’huomo in bivio (1687)
composer: Antonio Gianettini* (1648–1721)
librettist: Anonmyous
La vittima d’amore, osia La morte di Cristo (1690)
composer: Antonio Gianettini* (1648–1721)
librettist: Francesco Torti (1658–1741)
*The composer’s last name is also spelled Giannettini, Zanettini, and Zannettini.
Tony Lopresti is Mime Director of the Festival Musica sull’Acqua on Italy’s Lake Como where he teaches classical mime and creates original theatrical interpretations of Festival music, including Igor Stravinky’s L’Histoire du Soldat, in which he also plays the Soldier. He co-founded MuMoMusement—a new fusion of music and movement—with Festival Artistic Director and Italian violinist Francesco Senese. Tony and Francesco created Apocalypse Man, a solo physical interpretation of Bela Bartók’s Sonata for Solo Violin, which premiered in L’Aquila, Italy and later at the Mantova International Chamber Music Festival. Tony was a principal performer with the New York Pantomime Theatre under the direction of Moni and Mina Yakin presenting original full-length works at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.
Jeremy Rhizor, Academy of Sacred Drama artistic director
Jeremy Rhizor is one of the world’s foremost interpreters of the Baroque oratorio repertoire and is the driving force for its revival in the United States. Along with reviving the music of oratorios, Rhizor has reconstructed the format of oratorio performances by retaining the lecture or sermon between musical halves in large-scale two-part oratorios. As the founder and artistic director of the Academy of Sacred Drama, Rhizor built an organization inspired by Baroque academies into an institution that champions the performance and research of sacred drama. Noted for playing “virtuosically but with fluid grace” by The New York Times, Rhizor is a core member of Aureas Voces in Nova Scotia and performs with early music ensembles throughout North America on the violin. He will be the guest concertmaster of the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra for a Naxos Records recording in the 2020–2021 season. Rhizor lives in White Plains, NY.
